ABSTRACT
Lance Armstrong provides the figure with which to begin to grasp both doping and sport in the neoliberal age. Armstrong was the figure who globalized cycling and shifted its centre of power from Old Europe to the new Anglo-American world and economy. The comeback commenced in Spain when Armstrong surpassed all his previous achievements and finished fourth in the 1998 Vuelta a Espana. Armstrong learned and appropriated from the way the nomadic Italians and Spanish played the game and prepared. Simeoni was a former client of Dr Michele Ferrari, the doctor who treated Armstrong and various other former and cyclists. At the age of 21 Armstrong became a professional cyclist with the Motorola cycling team. The Armstrong investment was ‘the best investment the state could realize’. In the end much has been said since the US Anti-Doping Agency case against Armstrong concerning how it set the stage for a new paradigm of anti-doping, based upon investigation rather than testing.
